


Incorrect Personal Pronouns and the Majestic Plural

by whirlingdervish



Series: Proximity [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-09 01:37:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12877422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whirlingdervish/pseuds/whirlingdervish
Summary: Not beta-ed or brit-picked.Characters are not mine.Sorry for any mistakes!





	Incorrect Personal Pronouns and the Majestic Plural

**Author's Note:**

> Not beta-ed or brit-picked.  
> Characters are not mine.
> 
> Sorry for any mistakes!

                Molly texts after lunch. She worries.

                “It’s not like it was before,” she reasons with him when she visits that evening, inspecting the kitchen for evidence of his eating habits, “I mean, living alone, it’s hard to go back to.”

                She would know, Sherlock assumes, it’s been nearly a year since she called off her engagement to Tom. But Molly had cats. Her nurturing side has ensured she hasn’t ever really lived alone. Molly pretends to be busy wiping up the counters but Sherlock knows she’s just stalling while she puzzles out how to phrase what she wants to say next. She had better not suggest he get a cat.

                “I don’t want you to be lonely,” she finally blurts, and blushes, but at least she doesn’t stammer an apology. She’s really a remarkable woman, Sherlock admits to himself, more resilient than strong, but resilience is a strength in itself.

                All Sherlock manages in response is a shrug.

                In a flash, his eyes take in all the information she’s radiating. He deduced that she had started dating someone a few months ago, but he sees in her demeanor and her concern for Sherlock’s sake that it’s become quite serious. Good for her, he thinks, and tries to appear more aloof than he’s currently feeling. He’s not so bitter yet that he can’t congratulate a friend on having finding love, even from his own unrequited hell. Still, he’ll miss the grim satisfaction that he’s not the only one. At least he still has Lestrade, who has had failed romance after failed romance since the divorce went through.

                It suddenly clicks and Sherlock inhales sharply as though the realization were a bucket of cold water.

                “Greg’s asked you to move in.” Sherlock announces, and realizes belatedly that it’s the first words he’s spoken aloud today. It’s obvious now, the brunette hair on his sleeve and the vague smell of formaldehyde.

                “How did...? No, never mind, I don’t care,” Molly blustered, her cheeks growing even rosier, “This isn’t about me, Sherlock. It’s not good for you to keep yourself cooped up here like this, going days without speaking or seeing another person.”

                “I don’t live entirely alone, Mrs. Hudson…”

                “Has been on a cruise for two weeks,” Molly answers, and begins to fix a plate of left-overs after carefully sniffing them to make sure they haven’t gone off.

                In actuality, he hadn’t noticed her absence at all. Sherlock chews his bottom lip as he parses out how he had let that detail slip. It seemed only yesterday when she was nattering at him about something or another, important phone numbers or some such.

                “Look,” Molly says, placing a plate in front of him and putting one hand on her hip, “I know it isn’t my place, but … have you talked to John?”

                Sherlock was careful to school his features to a carefully neutral expression. He hasn’t seen John in over a month, not since his failed attempt to ask him to move back to 221B.  His pride was wounded and the reward for being vulnerable was a couple of awkward, stumbling excuses from John and a month of silence with the exception of a few easily ignored texts.

                “He’s been busy,” Sherlock excuses, and begins poking at the food in front of him.

                “He misses you.”

                “He knows where I am,” Sherlock snaps, and then swallows it, looking shamefaced.

     A gentle hand rests on his shoulder, warmth spreads through him. It bothers him that he’s become so hungry for human touch that even a commiserating pat can send his pulse racing. He hangs his head, fringe falling into his eyes. He needs a haircut.

      “Sherlock,” Molly soothes and he hand slides along the back of his shoulders around him and pulls him into an awkward side hug.

      “That day,” Sherlock starts, and pauses, “Sherrinford…”

      They had already briefly discussed it after the fact. He had tried to explain - and now, knowing that she had already been seeing Lestrade when he had forced her confession, under duress , feels a fresh wave of guilt.  

      “I’ve already forgiven you,” Molly said, not relinquishing her grasp on him yet.

      “You didn’t answer your mobile, the first time. You always answer your mobile.”

      Molly thinks back to that afternoon, when tears already in her eyes Sherlock’s name appeared on her phone.

      “Not at first, no.”

      “You had been crying,” Sherlock says, brows drawing together. He had noticed it, but at the time he hadn’t given himself the time to deduce it. He had thought her life was at stake.

      Molly’s arm slipped from its place around his shoulders and she withdrew a pace.

      “Yes,” she warily admits.

      Concerned eyes, almost a watery gray in the kitchen light, look up at her.

      Molly understands cats better than people, and for lack of a better analogy, Sherlock had been an arrogant and pampered cat before he went away for two years and before he lost his best friend to marriage and then watched Mary die and lost him a second time. Now he was acting like that cat who, after being stray for a long time, seemed repentant and starving for affection.

      “Why?”

      Molly sighs and pulls out the kitchen chair to sit in. She doesn’t want to tell Sherlock why she had been crying, but his expression is earnest and he looks younger somehow, a rare display of his vast vulnerability. He needs to understand.

      “I was having a shit day,” she answers with a wry smirk.  “Weren’t we all?” Her attempt at levity falls flat and she pushes on. “Greg and I… I mean it was good- we had an amazing few weeks and then suddenly he started acting weird. He distanced himself, I guess. He said you deduced that he was seeing someone but said it wouldn’t last. Said I wasn’t the one. It rattled him. He thinks you’re infallible.”

      “I didn’t mean…”

      “You weren’t to know,” Molly shakes her head, and her smile is a bit tight, “but we ended up having a huge row and he accused me of not being – of not being over you. I guess I couldn’t deny it as concretely he would have liked and he said we should cool it, take a break…”

      “I’m sorry Molly,” Sherlock mumbles, “and then I forced you to say…”

      “I meant it, you know,” Molly interrupts him, putting her hand over his on the table. “I do love you. I do, Sherlock. It’s a funny thing, that love can take so many forms. Even though I knew it was hopeless, there is a part of me that will never be completely past you.”

                Sherlock pointedly looks away and Molly withdraws her hand. She knows he empathizes, and it is enough.

                “In a way, confessing was what helped me see just what I was I holding myself back from. Greg and I worked it out and we’re happier than ever! You’ve already deduced we’re moving in together.”

                “I’m happy for you.” Sherlock says with a smile, Molly demurs and smiles happily.  “You don’t have to be worried for me, Molly. I’m fine,” She looks skeptical, raising one eyebrow. Damn, she knows him too well. “Really, I am content.”

                “You’re resigned,” Molly says with a shake of her head, “There is a difference.”

            “Well, you know what they say, ‘Living with someone you love can be lonelier than living entirely alone, if the one that you love doesn’t love you.’ So in a way it’s actually a good thing that John turned me down because even though I’d never do anything to try to change him or ask more of him than he’s able to give… eventually he’ll begin dating again and… Watson needs a mother…and I can’t do it again. No, I mean I will- I will do anything he needs me to, but maybe it’ll be easier if I’ve got a place to retreat to.”

            Molly’s eyes are sad. Sherlock hadn’t meant to reveal all, but he suspects she already knew. He pushes the plate away and puts his head down on the table.

            “What exactly do you suggest?” He asks.

            Molly bites her bottom lip as she thinks about it.

            “We’re going out tonight, I don’t know, maybe Greg or I could set you up with someone?”

            Sherlock groans dramatically and leans back in the chair and looks up at the ceiling. “Uh, God no! I am not interested in a romantic relationship.”

            “Unless it’s with-”

            “Translation: I am not interested in a romantic relationship.” His voice feels sharp.

            Molly giggles, and Sherlock fixes her with an incredulous stare.

            Her phone chimes brightly and she fishes it out of her large coat pocket where she has draped it over the back of the kitchen chair. He can tell that it’s Lestrade by the way her pupils dilate.

            “Alright. Let me know if you change your mind.” Molly drapes her coat over her arm as she heads toward the door. “Mrs. Hudson will be back in a few days, you might want to at least attempt to tidy up.”

            “Nonsense,” Sherlock dismisses, “She likes to feel needed.”

            “I’ll ask Greg if he has any cases for you- you should call John.”

            Sherlock bristles, and is about dismiss the idea again, but can’t help but to admit to himself that his misery is, at least in part, self-inflicted. He misses John, but knows that his pride is what’s keeping him from asking him over. He knows John would come if he snapped his fingers… or at least he used to know. Time and circumstances have warped their dichotomy and drawn asymmetric lines between them. And anyway, it isn’t Molly’s fault. He pinches his rude retort between his lips and crushes it into a small smile.

            “I will,” He tells Molly. “Thank you.”

            Molly ambles down the stairs and Sherlock watches out the window as Lestrade greets her with a swift kiss.

            Sherlock spends approximately two hours looking at his phone. He isn’t sure if he is mustering courage or trying to delay the inevitable. He doesn’t know what to text. He doesn’t think John’s pupils will dilate when he reads his message or if the brightness of the screen will have the opposite effect. It’s late. Watson will be asleep in her cot. John is probably watching crap telly, or at least asleep in front of it.

            He starts and aborts no fewer than seven texts before settling on;

            **Baker Street. Tomorrow 11:00. Bring Milk. SH**

He hopes that the imperious summon will mask the terrible panic that is currently welling up in his chest. Instantly his mind palace offers him an array of senarios to explain why John hadn’t responded immediately the worst of these see John seated across a table with some simpering woman on a date, even though Sherlock knows that this is highly unlikely, given that Mrs. Hudson isn’t minding Watson tonight and that John has been reluctant as of yet to dive back into the dating arena.

            The mobile vibrates with John’s response.

            Is the milk for an experiment?

            **For tea. We are out. SH**

Sherlock immediately regrets using the word we, but his thumbs had been faster than his brain and had sent it already.  Perhaps John will assume Sherlock now uses the Majestic Plural, he is not the common wealth after all, instead of as an incorrect personal pronoun.

            We’ll be there at 11:00. Goodnight, Sherlock.

            Sherlock goes to bed but cannot sleep, instead he contemplates all the many wonderful facets of the two letter word that has all his hopes hinged upon it.

 

           

 

 

 


End file.
